Truth and Consequences
by JennieM
Summary: Grissom’s back after his surgery, which didn’t go the way he had hoped. Even though he very unexpectedly has the support of his superiors in his effort to reintegrate himself into his job, can he overcome his team’s mistrust? GS friendly. COMPLETE
1. Author's Notes and Prologue

**Author's Notes:**

This takes place in a sort of AU in which the "hearing thing" is being tackled now, not saved for later for the sole purpose of torturing us, the innocent(?) viewers. :)

No money to be made here (no kidding—unless I can get paid to stop inflicting this on the world!).

I've made little to no attempt to "gloss" any ASL that appears here—because my knowledge of ASL grammar sucks too badly to expose it to the world. 

Thanks to Wynd Communications and the Deaf-Hearing mailing list at Yahoo! for the technical assistance they didn't know they rendered. ;)

I have chosen to go with the "Grissom's mother having gone deaf at eight" interpretation of the signed conversation at the end of "Sounds of Silence" because, in my half-baked opinion, it fits more closely into what we know of Grissom. It seems to me highly unlikely that he would have acquired such a knowledge—and comfort within the fringes—of the "big-d" Deaf community if his mother had been deafened in adulthood, not childhood. 

Most adults that lose their hearing in adult tend to retain a strong identification with the hearing world; they tend _as a group_ (i.e., in a general sense) not to be terribly interested learning ASL. Those that chose to study it or some other signed language are at a disadvantage; ASL has an extremely complex grammar and structure unique to it that adults have a hard time mastering. So, I'm choosing to conclude that Griss' signing skills and knowledge of Deaf culture and etiquette were transmitted to him (as culture in a general sense is usually handed down) by a mother who herself had been integrated into the community. 

If somebody wants to make me, I'll cite my sources…:)…but I really doubt that anyone cares about an annotated bibliography being attached to a mere bit of fluff.

Lady Heather needed a last name for my twisted purposes; I don't recall the show ever supplying one, so I pulled one from the ether for her use. Hope it's okay with her.

All mistakes are solely the author's fault…

Enjoy (I hope)!

…from the Americans with Disabilities Act (as digested at )

SEC. 102. DISCRIMINATION. 

(a) No [company with 15 or more employees] shall discriminate against a qualified individual with a disability because of the disability of such individual in regard to job application procedures, the hiring, advancement, or discharge of employees, employee compensation, job training, and other terms, conditions, and privileges of employment. 

(b) The term "discriminate" includes: 

(1) limiting, segregating, or classifying a job applicant or employee in a way that adversely affects the opportunities or status of such applicant or employee because of the disability of such applicant or employee; 

(3) utilizing standards, criteria, or methods of administration 

(A) that have the effect of discrimination on the basis of disability 

(5)(A) not making reasonable accommodations to the known physical or mental limitations of an otherwise qualified individual with a disability who is an applicant or employee.

** Prologue**

It was all the fault of the evil genie, clad in Aladdinesque blue and black satin robes…

No. Too simplistic. His job had taught him long ago that the division between black and white, of right and wrong, was rarely so clear-cut. 

All right, then…it was a despairing, weary genie, suffering from millennia of being endlessly trapped and released by those greedy, depressingly predictable, hardheaded humans that just couldn't seem to _get_ it. 

Okay. He was on his third wish, and…

No, not the third one. He was not a vain man, nor was he self-righteous—well, not usually—but he just _knew _that he would find it within himself to free the genie with the third wish. So this had to be the second one. He knew that, with his luck, he would have accidentally wasted the first one in some way. "How I wish it weren't so hot," or some other inane conversational sally. Poof.

The second wish.

The genie would turn those bleak but kindly eyes toward him upon hearing it.

"No, no, no! Trust me, you don't want that. You may think you do, but I can promise you that you will curse me for granting it to you within minutes of it coming true. Please, Master…could I perhaps interest you in a nice shiny bright-red sports car? The phone number of that nubile young clerk at the corner convenience store, perhaps?"

He scowled at the genie.

"She's a pretty girl. I'm allowed to look, you know. Men do that. But, no. I know what I want. I thought you weren't supposed to question my will, anyway."

He imagined he could almost feel the unearthly gust of wind the genie's sigh would have caused.

"Sheesh, sorry for trying. For some reason, I find myself caring what happens to you, though I'm sure you're no different than all the rest. I'll be back in that wretched bottle until some other schmoe finds me…"

The scowl intensified.

"I resent that. Just to show you I'm _not _like that, I pledge that my last wish will be your freedom. But not unless you hop to it."

"My eternal gratitude for my coming freedom, Master. I only wish I could convince you to spare yourself disaster." The genie held up a cartoonish, four-fingered hand to forestall further reprimand from his liberator. "But since your wish is my command, so be it. Please restate your request."

"I wish they would all just…go away for a while, stop interfering, give me some space so that I can deal with and resolve this...whatever this is...by myself."

The genie's dark eyes were sorrowful—for a second, they really reminded him of someone else who Must Be Dismissed Immediately from the Consciousness—okay. All gone. That was close, but he was fine now.

"Very well, Genie. My third wish is to grant you your eternal liberty."

He would have thought that the apparition would jump for joy and quickly disappear in a puff of smoke, but although gratitude could be seen in those fathomless eyes, the sorrow remained. "Master, I can't begin to thank you for your mercy. But, please, next time…"


	2. Be Careful What You Wish For

**1. "Be careful what you wish for"**

Grissom knew that the debacle into which his return had disintegrated was entirely his fault. 

It hadn't been _all_ bad, to be fair. His first day back, and one of the first things he had discovered was that his fears about losing his job upon discovery of his condition had been largely groundless. 

"I don't understand why you would think that you would be forced out for this, Grissom," Dr. Robert Covallo had said. "Even if we wanted to simply dump the supervisor of one of the premier crime labs in the country—your team's solve rate speaks for itself—how would that look from a political standpoint? Even if you didn't personally sue us, _someone_ would make sure the ADA litigation was used to carve us all a nice new set of orifices." 

Grissom had been slightly and momentarily frightened to see the director's dour expression briefly break up into an uncharacteristic smile. He was reassured when he realized that it showed more teeth than amusement. _That _was in character.

"Now, if you can't in fact do your job, that's another story. If you can't keep your people from getting sloppy and incinerating my lab, for instance...well, the Americans with Disabilities Act assumes that a protected individual is actually qualified to do his or her job, Grissom."

Grissom nodded crisply.

"Understood," he replied.

The director snorted with genuine amusement—this time nearly alarming Grissom into falling out of the chair.

"I'll bet you _did_ understand. 'If you have something to say to me, say it to my face.' A better job of dissimulation I have yet to see." He let out another short bark of laughter. "I'd fight the sheriff tooth and nail to keep you just for your entertainment value, Grissom."

It took Grissom a moment to realize that the interview was at an end. He just barely succeeded in suppressing a loudly whooshing sigh of relief and wonder as he got to his feet. That was _it_? He was so engaged in those unaccustomed emotions that he almost didn't notice the director trying to attract his attention again. He could have derived a great deal of satisfaction from seeing the uneasy look on his supervisor's face as the man tried to figure out a dignified way to do so, but this reprieve made him feel too charitable. 

"Sorry, Robert. You were saying..."

"Ahem." The director cleared his throat to regain his equilibrium. "Er, yes...I just wanted to remind you _not _to treat the request for an interpreter the same way as you do your other paperwork. I want it on my desk ASAP, Grissom."

Grissom was taken aback. He hadn't expected that the LVPD could afford extravagances such as that. Even if cost were not an issue, he could see the potential for the disruption of the tightly knit team by the inclusion of an outsider. 

The director intercepted the objection before it came to fruition.

"Look, just get me the paperwork. It will be up to you whether you make use of our offer of help. I suggest you do so, however." He waved to indicate that the still-hesitating Grissom could leave at his leisure.

"Thank you, Robert," he managed to choke out. The director nodded but made no further comment.

The niceness had by no means stopped there. He had encountered Brass in the hall on his way to the office.

"Hey, nice sports car," the chief had teased, gesturing to the sapphire-blue earmold of the behind-the-ear hearing aid Grissom brazenly wore on his unoperated ear. 

Grissom's audiologist had laughed at his keen interest in the color choices she usually only offered to her youngest clients and their parents. But he had found the flesh-colored molds to be frankly unattractive and far from invisible—even if he had cared to hide the aid.

"It cost at least as much as a decent down payment," Grissom conceded amiably.

"And it matches your eyes so nicely," Brass jibed with a sly smile. "I'm sure that was just a fortunate accident, right? Well, glad to see you back and doing so well," he said cheerily, his sincerity reflected in his kind dark eyes. With a comradely clout to his colleague's black leather jacketed shoulder, Brass continued on his way.

Not to be outdone, Al the coroner accosted him further down the hall.

"That'll teach you to listen to me, eh?" he ribbed gently. His crystalline blue eyes reflected the sympathy that he would never disgrace his friend by expressing aloud. "Well, don't start thinking you're in the club or anything..."

"'Club?'" Grissom repeated, not quite sure he was tracking properly.

The doctor's grin was wide and wicked.

"The gimp club, my friend. You'll have to work harder than that to gain admittance."

Grissom thought how shocked any of their workmates would be to hear Dr. Al's irreverent treatment of his life situation. Strangely enough, it made him feel closer to "normal"—whatever that might be—than he had in ages.

"Let me know the membership costs and get back to me?" he suggested with a wry smile.

"You can count on it. Though if you don't get in to see your orthopedist about those knees of yours..."

Grissom laughed. 

"If I do that, I'll be out of the club for sure, and I couldn't bear that."

Dr. Al straightened up on his canes.

"Got a 'client' waiting for me...gotta get back."

Grissom raised an eyebrow with interest.

"Whose case?"

"Catherine and Nick are working on this one. Looks like a routine suicide—as routine as they come, anyway."

Grissom sighed. "Would that there were no such thing," he agreed, his tone pensive. "See you, Doc."

Back in his office, he felt that odd sense of disconnection that a long absence often brought to familiar surroundings. He could now see how an outsider might view the place as cluttered—but also realized that the feeling wouldn't even last the entire shift. It began to fade even as he thought about it.

Catherine had been kind enough to keep his paperwork completed for him during his prolonged medical leave—even though it likely also involved enlightened self-interest, not wanting to have her own leave and travel requests buried among the chaff as usual. He chuckled to himself at that thought. At any rate, the desk was clear of the usual pile of postponed bureaucracy. She had even completed the interpreter request form sent to him by Covallo, lacking only his signature (which he was certain she had forged many a time during his absence). He was thus free to contemplate what to do next.

***

If only he had contemplated harder. Because that genie, Percocet-induced though it might have been, was right. He had gotten what he wanted—what he thought he had wanted. And he knew that he wasn't going to be able to make it through another shift like this one, because of it. He needed his wish undone.

Having been so foolishly noble as to free the genie, he sought a more readily available alternative. What about that Employee's Assistance Program that was so heavily hyped by the management? There was supposed to be walk-in counseling available. Heck, maybe he could pretend that he'd been involved in a suicide-by-cop incident, should there be any unreasonable delay. He picked up the jacket he'd tossed carelessly on the floor and headed down to the EAP wing.

He had been asked to wait—but only until the next available counselor finished an appointment. Half an hour, Dr. Grissom?

So he sat in the tastefully, though not ostentatiously—cranky taxpayers being what they were—appointed anteroom, with plenty of time to rehash the parts of his shift that had been most definitely bad.

He had walked into the staff room, clipboard in hand, striding confidently, clad in the classic black leather jacket that had attracted so much clandestine notice the last time he had appeared in it. His unusual attention to his appearance had garnered him a sardonic smile from Catherine.

Catherine had comprised nearly his entire support system throughout the whole ordeal leading up to his return. He had always wondered about her continuing loyalty to him—he knew himself to be a difficult person to befriend, much less maintain a friendship with. But then he had figured it out; once Cat decided you were worth her time, no matter who you might be, she would simply not be dumped. 

Lord knows he had tried...he had in the past attempted ignoring her when she got on his nerves (as if she would permit herself to be ignored), insulting her in an attempt to get her to withdraw (big mistake—one couldn't win slanging matches with someone who had earned such a decidedly feline nickname), going out of his way to offend her. No go. She brushed all of that off as she would a speck of dust from one of her stylish outfits. So, he had long ago accepted the fact that she could not be dislodged—he had the feeling that having her killed would only result in her returning to haunt him as if nothing had ever happened. He now accepted her mixture of contention and sincerity as a permanent part of his life.

She stepped back to join their junior colleagues in awaiting their assignments—and that was the end of the "Let's Support Grissom" pep club. 

Sara, Nick, and Warrick slouched at the table in varying positions of polite disinterest. Upon his greeting them, Nick had given him a desultory smile that had disappeared almost as quickly as it had appeared. Warrick had quickly nodded, his aspect neither friendly nor unfriendly; merely impersonal. She Who Must Not Be Allowed to Upset My Equilibrium—wow, that had been close—Sara's eyes had been their usual lucid espresso brown; but, _not_ like usual, completely unreadable.

Catherine's smile faltered a bit in the decidedly chilly atmosphere of the room, but she said nothing.

Neither did any of the three that had been, to varying degrees, closer to him than his actual kin. He had braced himself for accusations, intensive questioning, over-effusive welcomes, a cake in the break room...and it had turned out that he need not have bothered.

"I thought perhaps _one _of them might have questions," he said wonderingly. "Hell, even a tirade would have at least been interesting. But they just sat there in a row, as if we'd never been any closer than supervisor and subordinates."

"Is this typical behavior for them?" queried the young woman seated in the petite armchair across from his own matching one. 

He stared at the counselor in disbelief. Up until that very moment, Melissa Settergren, MSW, had impressed him with her no-nonsense, down-to-earth presence and immediately apparent intelligence. 

Far from being intimidated by his hearing loss, upon being informed of it, she had pulled open a desk drawer to extract an FM receiver, which she laid upon the adjacent coffee table. She then clipped a lavaliere microphone to the collar of her blouse.

"I have a neck loop here, a set of headphones..."

Grissom reached for the neck loop. He would be able to use it to take advantage of the telecoil built into his hearing aid. He plugged its cable into the receiver with deft fingers that were accustomed to finely detailed work.

"...And so I see that I won't need to explain the use of assistive listening devices to you, Dr. Grissom," the counselor had said, an unsuspected dimple appearing in one cheek as she smiled.

"Please, Ms. Settergren, just 'Grissom' is fine," Grissom had offered.

"Agreed—but only if you stop making me look all over the room to see if my mother's here to check up on me."

Grissom had raised a quizzical eyebrow.

"She's the only 'Ms. Settergren' in our family," she explained.

He laughed even as he gave her a reproachful look, the type given to those inclined to tell painfully bad jokes.

"I would be happy if you felt comfortable enough to call me 'Melissa,'" she offered in return.

Something about the small round face, framed with a riot of dishwater-blonde curls, made him feel unusually comfortable in her presence. Consequently, he had been lulled into taking her less than seriously...until she had asked her seemingly nonsensical question. But the expression in the sharp amber-flecked eyes held not the least hint that she was making a joke.

"What are you talking about?" he had replied, the long, stressful shift he had just completed making it difficult for him to keep the irritation out of his tone. For a moment, he felt a nostalgic wave of emotion...it was almost as if he had Warrick or Nick before him, overlooking details. "Would I be here if this were their typical behavior?"

"You're an investigator," Melissa replied, unfazed by her client's riposte. "As well as a highly independent research scientist. I believe you would get more out of our time here if you were guided to discover your own answers. So, to begin, why don't _you_ venture a guess as to some reason for their atypical behavior? You know your team."

Did he? 

He would have sworn that he had. The team had investigated—and cheated—death, had formed a united front under political pressure, had bailed each other out of varyingly difficult personal situations, and thus forged bonds that he had thought were elastic and unbreakable. 

The idea that this could turn out to be untrue was almost paralyzing. It certainly dried up his power to speak.

"Your hearing loss...is it of recent etiology?" Melissa prompted.

She'd found it—the sticking point. He felt the paralysis lessen.

"Ah...yes and no."

He expected her to interrupt with an indignant demand to clarify his answer, but she didn't. She sat in her chair, her expression peaceful and encouraging.

Thankfully, she was going to allow him time to explain in his own way. He felt himself relax into his own comfortable armchair, some of the tension abruptly gone.

"Yes...this current level of loss is new to me," he elucidated. "It's the result of surgery that didn't turn out as hoped. Which leads us to 'No, it's not new.' I have otosclerosis, a particularly aggressive and destructive form, it turns out. It's hereditary in my case, and I'd thought that I'd escaped...until last year, when I simply couldn't continue to attribute my symptoms to anything else."

Her expression implied full comprehension; he knew that he would not have to clarify what the disorder entailed. "Was your team aware that you were dealing with this problem?" she asked him. 

He had the feeling she had sometime in her past had contact with some of the departmental attorneys, and was now employing one of their credos: Never pose a question on the stand to which you don't know the answer. 

In response, he simply returned her glance, and she nodded in acknowledgement. 

The ensuing period of silence was brief but weighty. 

Grissom shifted restlessly in the chair that suddenly seemed not as comfortable as it had been.

Melissa said conversationally, 

"It can be a tough call, to know when—and _if_—disclosure of a disability in the workplace is wise or not."

Grissom looked at her with gratitude, but found himself again unable to reply. The words simply would not come.

"Especially," she suggested, "when you might not have necessarily worked out for _yourself_ what you're going to do about it?"

Grissom chuckled mirthlessly.

"I hadn't, in fact. Not until the decision was taken out of my hands, when the surgery didn't work out as I hoped it would," he confirmed.

Melissa's smile had a hint of wistfulness. 

"Correct me if I'm off track. You were feeling a great deal of pressure because of this situation. The only thing that you really, really wanted was just enough space and time to figure it out by yourself, so that you could rejoin the group with a plan of action in place."

He looked at her in some surprise, nodding emphatically.

"Exactly. I just needed to get a handle on things in my own mind before I could deal with the others."

She allowed the sympathy to show openly in her eyes as she ventured, 

"Well, Grissom, I think you got exactly what you wished for."

Startled, he looked at her suspiciously for a moment. She looked nothing like his Percocet genie, being much shorter just for starters, but still...

She didn't appear to find his reaction to be anything out of the ordinary.

"All the nonverbal signals we inadvertently send in situations like that...they are often misinterpreted as, 'Back off, just leave me alone' as opposed to, 'Please give me some time to work this out, though I appreciate and need your support.'" she observed.

In spite of his interest in the conversation, the effort it took to follow it was making itself felt, especially after the taxing ten hours he had just spent; the counselor could see that he was visibly fading from fatigue. Since they were only 10 minutes into an hour session, she wondered if he would be able to continue. She felt a bit disappointed to have to postpone the session with the legendary entomologist, but if he couldn't benefit...

Grissom noticed her concerned study of him and he tried to assume a more upright position in the chair.

"Grissom, do you think we ought to reschedule?"

He shook his head firmly.

"Right before you whip out the Rosetta stone and solve the whole thing?" he joked mildly. "Wouldn't dream of it. It's just that extended conversation can get a bit tiring for me these days. I'm not quite used to...my new circumstances."

Understanding cleared the furrow that her brow had developed.

"I see. Well, I'm neither an audiologist nor an occupational therapist, but...have you considered perhaps taking a course in speechreading? And, well, not to offend you, but the option of learning sign languge is..." She trailed off upon seeing his sardonic smile—unmistakably at her expense. She couldn't imagine what could be amusing him so, and it became her turn to be cranky.

"Dr. Grissom, I don't think I quite understand what's so funny," she began in her sternest tones. 

He waved an apologetic hand.

"I've spent the last few months taking speechreading classes. They were the secret to—well, my having been able to keep _my _secret as long as I did," he explained. _And I learned Sign as a child,_ he signed, mischievously using true, "voice-off" American Sign Language.

He was about to translate for her, when he noticed that she was now smiling delightedly. 

_"A friend of mine in college had a roommate who was deaf," _she signed and spoke aloud. Her hands were clumsy from rustiness, her pace slow, and her grammar as "Englishy" as it got, but her message came through intelligibly. _"After four years of learning, I didn't get much better than this, but I'd be happy to practice on you," _she said with a charming grin—though not winsomely gap-toothed like...

He blinked with the effort of forcing Her from his consciousness. Fortunately, Melissa noticed nothing amiss for once.

_You sign beautifully, _he told her truthfully—after all, was not the effort to communicate with one's fellow humans in itself beautiful?

The session continued in this mode; whenever the well-intentioned but sometimes less-than-fluent counselor mangled a sign beyond comprehensibility, he discreetly picked up her meaning by watching her lips. However, he was able to sit back and relax instead of focusing all his energies on the mere act of conversing. He felt some of the exhaustion lift from his spirit.

_"All right,"_ she continued, _"back to those nonverbal signals."_

He sighed audibly.

"_I'm going to theorize that they worked all too well," _she averred. "_I work with the people in this department every day, Grissom."_

He stopped her to show her the name-sign his mother had given him, to save her from the tedium of spelling his name each time she addressed him. She smiled her gratitude.

"_With few exceptions, they tend to be intelligent and sensitive."_

He thought about Ecklie when she mentioned the possibility of exceptions, and studiously suppressed a smile. She must have caught the glint in his eye, for her own lips twitched for a second.

_"Most of them. Anyway, I am going to guess that this description would fit your group?"_

He nodded firmly—his reputation of not being one to suffer fools was not exaggerated. What most didn't know was that he cultivated it assiduously.

_"The scientists with which I have worked tend to be introverts, more so than the balance of the general population. Sound anything like your CSIs?" _she probed.

He nodded again. Her expression encouraged him to elaborate, so he obliged.

"Except for one member of my team who is most certainly anything but introverted, yes, that's the composition of my group."

The amber flecks in Melissa's eyes lighted with her interest.

_"Let me guess...you aren't having the same trouble with this member of your team."_

Grissom laughed quietly. Maybe all sorts of _other _trouble, but not the massive withdrawal he was sensing from the other three.

"As a matter of fact, she's been my right hand while I was gone. Not for completely altruistic reasons, mind you..."

Melissa actually smirked.

_"You're a biologist," _she countered. _"You know all about the myth of altruism in the animal kingdom."_

He _had_ encountered all the recent debunking of the concept, and frankly, it depressed him. 

She was contrite after seeing his expression.

_"Sorry," _she apologized. He simply shook his head. How could one apologize for telling the truth?

"At any rate, it was a mutually beneficial arrangement," he agreed.

She cut to the chase.

"_Okay. You have three sensitive, intelligent introverts. They receive signals they interpret to mean 'leave me alone'. They don't have the persistence—an introvert in a bad mood might call it nosiness—of your only extravert."_

He laughed again at this uncannily accurate characterization of his longtime best friend.

"_So they retreat behind their own personal walls," _she speculated. "_After all, don't we as humans—when well-intentioned—have the strong desire to give others what they seem to want?"_

His shoulders sagged again. He could see the scenario exactly as she portrayed it. She was kind enough not to put it bluntly, but his own mind did it for him—he had hurt his team deeply with his seeming rejection, then abrupt disappearance. The reason for the aforementioned disappearance had come to them third-hand, revealing a long-held secret that seemed to imply a lack of trust of them. He was lucky that they hadn't refused to work with him altogether, as betrayed as they no doubt felt.

***

Earlier...

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a fiery flash of strawberry-blonde hair. He looked up to meet Catherine's ironic gaze. He slid his reading glasses off his nose and onto the desk; if she were going to speak to him, they would make her face too out of focus to read.

He felt somewhat annoyed as she comfortably settled herself against the doorway, folding her arms, while saying absolutely nothing. After what felt like an eternity—even though logic told him was just a minute—he volunteered with false agreeability,

"Cath, can I do something for you?"

Her grin widened.

"My friend," she drawled, "not this time. You might say I'm here to do _you _a favor."

She leaned back even further, her intense green gaze unwavering.

He tossed down the slide he had been preparing, irritated beyond concentration. If no one else had any real work to do, he certainly did. And he wanted to get back to it. He stared back at her with a hint of belligerence.

"I'd be afraid to ask what that could possibly be, if it weren't for the fact that I don't have all night to wait," he snapped.

"Ouch," she replied with a mock air of injured feelings. "If it weren't for the fact that you are about to be late to your own staff meeting..." she taunted gently.

With a muttered expletive, his abstracted air disappearing, he scrambled to his feet.

"Thanks, Cath," he said in genuine gratitude, falling into step beside her as she efficiently made her way to the break room. Dr. Al was right about the knees, he thought, _apropos_ of nothing to do with the upcoming trial by fire—er, informal staff meeting.


	3. Knowing is Half ? the Battle

**2. Knowing is Half(?) the Battle**

He recalled an old after-school cartoon series…GI Joe, that was it. A prolonged bout with insomnia in the late 80s had acquainted him with it—and he had begun taping the show upon his recovery, having become hopelessly hooked. The squad had comfortably declared after each episode that "knowing is half the battle"—thereby deluding an entire generation of susceptible young minds into believing that watching the approach of a coming disaster would do a lick of good. He was not so easily deceived; he knew that his knowledge of his own culpability in this state of affairs did nothing to ameliorate it.

This staff meeting had been Melissa's idea—a way to reconnect with his junior CSIs, to begin the healing process.

_"Sooner or later, they will let you have it," _she warned. _"Might as well hope for sooner."_

She had explained a theory that some therapists proposed, that acceptance of a disability in some ways mirrored the recovery process of an addict. She herself found the 12-step program to have its problems, especially with its religious overtones that made it unpalatable to many. 

_"But I want you to consider adapting steps eight and nine," _she had suggested. She had xeroxed them from a book for him, and he still had the scrap of paper tucked into his pocket.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. 

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

This meeting was his first attempt at amends. 

Why did that inconvenient little rule about consuming alcohol while on the clock have to exist? He could sure use a stiff one—or three—right then.

He treated himself to a small laugh at the irony of employing two of the twelve steps, while contemplating the consumption of the substance—well, the abuse thereof—that had inspired them.

Cath scowled at him.

"Gonna share the joke?" she demanded.

He smiled at her.

"Nope," he replied, sauntering past her to take his place at the head of the table. Turnabout really _was _fair play.

The jauntiness faded from the room with the arrival of the first junior attendee, Nick. The dark-eyed Texan gave him a sidelong look, then chose a spot as far as he practically could from his boss and sometime mentor. Now that Melissa had ventured her guess as to what had been going on, Grissom could see it clearly—hurt was etched upon the profile that combined strength and delicacy to such good effect. Nick was not one to readily bury most of his emotions beneath the surface, and Grissom had always secretly admired that.

Warrick was the next to arrive. He actually seemed to find it within himself to greet his boss with a tentative half-smile and a brief "Evening, Griss," before seating himself next to his friend and office betting partner.

Was that an extension, however preliminary, of the olive branch? 

Just as he was thinking that perhaps Melissa had overestimated the difficulty he would have in reestablishing the rapport that he and his team had developed over the years, Sara came striding into the room. Her eyes were again unreadable, her face pale and set. She brought with her an air of heaviness like that of a sudden summer storm.

He dismissed the idea of an easy solution.

Trailing in last was a surprise guest…Greg. The face under the spiky brown hair was as composed and friendly as always. The others turned to look at him in amazement—what was _he_ doing at a staff meeting that he probably could have easily gotten out of? He returned their gazes with his usual bordering-on-the-supercilious smile.

Grissom stood up and cleared his throat, which gained him everyone's attention. He fought down a momentary feeling of panic, and wrestled back the tiny voice that tried to tell him that this was all a huge mistake, that he would be better off returning to the comfort and surety of secrecy.

"Hi, folks," he began lamely. The social niceties of beginning a meeting had never been of interest to him; consequently, he now felt himself to be at a distinct loss. Several sets of eyes reminded him that this was not a social club; that staff meetings were not exactly their idea of recreation to spice up the workday.

He leaned on his hands on the conference-style table, drawing on his years of lecturing and teaching to give him the wherewithal to go on.

"All right. I'm not going to waste your time. Basically, I've asked you here to apologize to you, and then get you up to speed on what's next for us."

A flurry of motion made him falter; by the time anyone in the room had realized what was happening, nothing was perceptible but the back of Sara's shiny, walnut-brown head and the slamming of the door.

This time, it was the urge to go after her that Grissom fought down. What good would following her achieve? He hadn't a clue. In a shadowy corner of his mind, he realized that an orchid, no matter how lovely, was not sufficient to remedy this setback. He filed that insight away for later perusal and forced himself to turn back to the remnants of his audience. Fortunately, they were all as taken aback as he had been; they hadn't yet started to become restless.

"Ah, yes. Well…as I said before, I realize that I owe every one of you an apology."

They weren't going to help him out of this one, he realized. They all waited, respectfully ready to listen to whatever he had to say. And, they were going to make him say it. No protestations of "Hey, that's okay" were going to be offered; the onus remained with him.

"Uh, yes, well, anyway…"

He knew he should have rehearsed this better, but he hadn't wanted to sound too slickly insincere, too unnatural. But he had never been good at thinking of things to say "on the fly"—on a social level, anyway. And Sara's abrupt departure hadn't helped matters; his mind was more inclined to deal with that issue than the one at hand.

Finally, Cath took pity on him. She waved a hand to ensure his attention.

"Why do you feel as if you need to apologize to us, Griss?" she prompted. This effort earned her baleful glares from Warrick and Nick, as they felt _themselves _to have been wronged. To them, she had been privileged, had been the favored confidante.

She, of course, knew better. And if a dirty look or two had ever been enough to faze her, she would have fled her chosen profession long ago. She smiled sweetly back at the two of them. Warrick's astonishingly green eyes continued to challenge hers; Nicky's gaze dropped to his hands on the table.

Grissom, meanwhile, now found himself able to stay on track. He made himself the bittersweet promise of seeking Sara out later, to find out what had prompted her unexpected actions. That had to be enough for now.

"I, as you now know, have been dealing with a medical issue for some time…"

Cath couldn't help herself. She snorted derisively.

He was now impervious to interruptions; he forged ahead.

"…which I have, for various reasons, been unable to share with you until now."

Cath said something under her breath, through clenched teeth, making her comments inaccessible to him. He decided that if she truly wanted a response from him, she would behave herself. Likely, she was instead simply venting. Nothing to do about that.

Nick, however, got to his feet and began pacing. Grissom realized that the younger CSI had been speaking to him while doing so, due to all the expectant glances he was now getting. He sighed. The apology would have to be back-burnered until The Problem was exposed, explained, and dissected to their satisfaction. He cringed inwardly.

"Nicky, I'm going to surmise that you've said something to me to which you'd like an answer."

The unwontedly sarcastic look that Nick gave him would have been hilarious under other circumstances. Now, it was simply annoying.

"All right," he said, allowing his exasperation to emerge in his tone. "I'm going to give you the facts as they stand, and then you may do as you like with them."

With those words, something within him shifted; the irritation evaporated. He now felt as comfortable as if he were merely presenting an interesting case for their review, the scientific approach being his "home" modality.

He looked directly at Nick, whose belligerence was beginning to fade into puzzlement.

"I have otosclerosis. You may research the condition on your own, should you not be familiar with it. It has caused a progressive hearing loss that led me to eventually pursue surgical remediation." 

He did not intend to confide to this slightly hostile group that he'd sincerely hoped, right up until that last walk to the OR, that it would just 'go away,' as he'd told Dr. Al. "For various reasons, one of which apparently being the hereditary thinness of my cochleas, the surgery that was performed on my right ear was unsuccessful, causing a complete sensorineural hearing loss in that ear. Understandably, my surgeon does not wish at this time to operate on the left ear. I have a fluctuating loss in that ear that varies, but is never less than 60 decibels."

The expression on the faces before him changed to universal shock; even Catherine had not known all of this—not the true extent of his loss, anyway. Then, as he had feared, apprehension and dismay began to seep into their aspects. He continued in spite of the sinking feeling he was experiencing within his own spirit. How the heck _was _he going to keep the wolf at bay? 

"So, Nick," he said, turning toward the now-repentant CSI, "In the future, any sarcastic remarks need to be made directly to me. My new mantra is: If I can't see you, I can't understand you." He swept them all with his glance. "And, those of you that tend to speak a bit rapidly might think to slow down once in a while."

Through the haze of perplexity, Greg, surprisingly, was the first to recover. He began to address Grissom, who held up a hand to stop him.

"First of all—if you can find it within yourself to call a temporary truce, do you think you might move closer? Right now, you're too far away for me to understand a word you're saying."

He was cheered by the scramble the two other CSIs made to get from the back of the conference room to the front, close to where their leader was standing. Cath moved over to make room for Warrick. He found it even more amusing to note the fact that those two so often ended up in close proximity when in a room together. He wondered—and doubted—if they noticed this.

"Better," he complimented, beginning to feel the semblance of the more confident person he had been in the past. He had gradually lost that part of himself over the previous months without really noticing it.

Greg favored him with a shadow of his trademark mischievous smile. Grissom immediately saw that their favorite lab rat was not yet back to his own pre-explosion exuberance; his own issues faded into manageability as he wondered if the tech's hands were still unsteady, a reminder of the terrible fright that had been inflicted upon him. But he could also see that the young man's insouciant spirit was still there to be retrieved—and he was glad of that.

"Pardon me for asking, but…" 

Indecision was plainly keeping from going on.

"But…" Grissom prompted firmly, refusing to allow him to back down.

"How is this going to affect your work in the field, Grissom? I mean…"

They all knew what he meant. The lesson that Holly Gribbs' death had taught them was indelible—CSIs were frighteningly vulnerable at crime scenes. Could a CSI operating with fewer than five—some would say six—senses be able to watch a partner's back? Would that person be anything less than a liability to those working at a scene, being in need of extra protection?

Grissom's gaze was steel blue, uncompromising.

"For now, I have promised the director that I will not go unaccompanied to a crime scene."

As she did with any mention of Dr. Covallo nowadays, Catherine looked as if she were suddenly being confronted with a weeks-old case of putrefaction. He had the feeling that, should he ever decide to evade his promise (and he knew he would sooner or later if the director didn't release him from it), that she would go out of her way _not _to report him. He smiled. Warrick and Nick—who had gone over to sit with the others—smiled back, knowing looks on their faces. Solidarity against a common enemy made them willing to push aside their own doubts—for the moment.

"Do you ever plan to use an interpreter?" Catherine asked, having handled the paperwork that Covallo had sent. 

He perceived that her question contained many subtexts, including: "Are we going to have to put up with outsiders because of you?" "Are you going to be able to cope with your job without a lot of special help?" "Is our lab going to disintegrate into a freak show?" He had thought of the same questions, and of more like them, so his answer was not impromptu.

"On occasion, yes. For large meetings, certain interviewing situations, cases where a misunderstanding could cause problems. Otherwise, on a daily basis, an interpreter won't be necessary."

He could sense the collective relief the assembled group felt with that answer; they were a tightly knit team, in many ways like a nuclear family. He had already taken a huge gamble when he had three years ago introduced an unknown quantity in the form of Sar—

She still had the power to derail his proverbial train of thought. He really needed to go after her and find out what had upset her so greatly. The impetus to bring the meeting to an abrupt close so that he could do so became nearly overwhelming. But professionalism won the battle this time.

It seemed as if his colleagues had asked all that felt comfortable bringing up at that particular time. Grissom leaned back in his chair.

"Bottom line—I'm on sufferance with the higher powers; I'm to be allowed to see if I can continue in my dual capacity of supervisor and field CSI. We will simply have to see if we can make this work as team. If not, then I will of course step down."

The dismay on every face made him understand that he wouldn't have to fight his own people, at least; that left his superiors and non-allied colleagues such as his fellow supervisor, Ecklie. That was a great relief—he wouldn't want to have to go up against the combined force of the astute minds of his team and his external opposers.

"Very well. Anyone with further questions or concerns—the usual applies. Talk to me. Leave me a nasty e-mail." They all laughed, surprised at the re-emergence of the humor that had slipped away along with his confidence.

Warrick raised an eyebrow. 

"What are we supposed to do if we need to call you?"

Grissom had not forgotten that they would ask about that, and hoped that the technological revue wouldn't last so long that Sara had enough time to do something rash before he could catch up with her. Especially since she had been caught in the lab explosion, a certain recklessness had surfaced in her essential nature that worried him.

"The 'powers that be' are not always so miserly as they appear," he began. "They bought me a new sort of text pager called a BlackBerry…"

Nick's eyes lit up; then, he looked a bit envious.

"Those are so cool. Heck, _I_ want one," he protested.

The characteristically eager look on Nick's face made Grissom have to work hard to suppress a fond smile. He instead responded with his own characteristic brusqueness.

"The mall cell-phone stores will all be open as soon as you get off shift. Knock yourself out," he suggested, eliciting a accusatory look from Nick and appreciative chuckles from the others.

"Anyway, my service is provided by a company that exists to serve deaf customers," he further clarified. He could see a discreet ripple of shock pass through his staff at his use of the term, but both sides decided to let it pass without comment. "Included among these services is voice-to-text messaging; you will be able to dial a toll-free number—which I'll provide you today—give my wireless number, and specify the message you want to send. It would then be delivered to me instantly. I'll also be able to receive e-mails from you at the lab, regular text messages from your cell phones, even faxes. In the direst of emergencies, I hope that you would dial 911 instead of me."

This got the laughter he was aiming for. He realized that, should his bid to remain employed at the lab not work out, he still had the skill to teach at the university level. That prospect, however, made him decide to work all the harder to hold out until retirement. He produced the pager, snazzily outfitted in a bright blue cover and sporting a handy miniature QWERTY keyboard. While they handled it, appreciatively but gingerly, Grissom's thoughts returned to Sara. She was a big girl, had been an adult for some time. He could not abandon his work responsibilities—especially not now—to deal with their interpersonal issues. He felt some of the first tranquility return to his mind in months as he decided that he would seek her out in due time—after he had finished his obligations to his other co-workers. 


	4. Not Sunshine, Lollipops, and Rainbows

3. "My Life's _Not _Sunshine, Lollipops, and Rainbows..."__

"Drop dead, Grissom."

That had come through quite clearly. He had been unable to get her to slow down and stop turning away from him, but she had made a point of straightening up from the microscope to fix him with her fiery dark gaze as she addressed those words of dismissal to him.

Although Melissa's idea of a meeting with his group had worked out fairly well, better than she had led him to expect, the butterflies and angel choir had failed to make their appearance afterwards.

He had run into Bobby the lab tech in the hall on his way to talk to Sara; the same Bobby from whom he had abruptly walked away in mid-sentence, just before his extended disappearance.

Bobby was not part of the "inner circle;" he had neither the length of acquaintance nor the familial feeling for Grissom that the night shift CSIs did. Consequently, he was not ready to extend the same mercy that they had granted—after making him work very hard for it. 

Very hard indeed.

"I don't know, Griss," Warrick had said, shaking his head. The fun of playing with the new technological toy had faded quickly; Nick and Greg were still passing it back and forth, taking turns at the built-in games while its owner was otherwise occupied, but Warrick had stopped him before he could declare the meeting over and hand out the thankfully sparse assignments for that night.

Their friendship had been on tenterhooks, anyway; the sequence of events culminating with the forced closure of the youth center had strained it almost to the breaking point.

"I mean, I just can't reconcile that you couldn't _say _something to us." 

Grissom discerned the deeper layers of meaning and substituted "me" in place of that last plural pronoun. He wasn't the only one to feel less than comfortable discussing feelings on the personal level. 

"I have no problem at all understanding why you didn't want this to become general knowledge," Warrick was saying. "But, man, you know all—_all_—of our secrets. You were always ready to put yourself on the line to save _our_ butts. But now we see it doesn't work both ways. What was all that help you gave us, charity or something?"

Nick had overheard his friend's comments and was now looking intently at their boss, the allure of the BlackBerry forgotten by him as well. His expression communicated that he agreed completely with Warrick, for once.

Grissom's first mental response was angry and defensive. _He _hadn't been the one who had let personal vices and relationships cause messy conflicts in the workplace, or gotten into sticky situations from which he would need extrication. Neither of them had any right to accuse him of being condescending.

And yet, he had to acknowledge that being left out of the loop was unsettling; and it felt pretty lousy to be made to feel untrustworthy by someone you thought respected you. They weren't ready to be made to see that it wasn't really about them at all—_that_ understanding would come after the feelings of hurt and betrayal were worked out. He hadn't needed to be told that—though Melissa had mentioned it near the end of their session.

He looked Warrick in the eye; in response, the gaze of the other softened in memory of a happier past. 

"As I said before, my reasons for not confiding in anyone had nothing to do with the regard I feel for any of you. Can you accept that? Think of us as being even now," he suggested.

Warrick's eyes turned sharply to him again at the painful recall of his inadvertent involvement in the self-destruction of his old coach, then dropped as he accepted the gift his boss and mentor was offering.

Grissom had felt wrung out and battered by the time he had retrieved the pager and handed out the assignments—nothing spectacular that night, except for a rape case that he gave to Catherine. He was craven enough to want to avoid anything that might set Sara off. Besides, there had been mention of blood spatters at the scene. Wasn't that Cath's area of expertise, anyway? 

Why, then, did he still feel as if he had deliberately spared himself trouble, at the expense of both CSIs?

Well, if missy hadn't slammed her way out of the meeting, he might have dredged up the courage to give her the case. He comforted himself with that reflection.

And now, of all people to nearly collide with in the hall…

The look that Bobby gave him left him in no doubt about the former's feelings about being treated in a way that had felt dismissive and high-handed.

"Sorry, Bobby," Grissom had said. He had let the deeper meaning, significance that went beyond the mere fact of carelessly placing himself in the path of the other, be discernible in his tone.

"Uh huh," was Bobby's only response. His eyes evaded Grissom's, but not before Grissom got a good look at the bewilderment and hurt reflected there. The tech continued on his way without a backward glance. 

Grissom decided that he would have to work out some sort of appeasement later; what few emotional resources he had left needed to be available for dealing with one very pissed-off CSI—wherever she was. 

She was bending over a microscope in one of the labs when he found her. Intent upon her work, she didn't notice him right away; he allowed himself the painful luxury of observing the way her seal-brown hair fell around her shoulders; she seemed to have been letting it grow lately. 

She finally looked up from the lens in order to change the slide, and the game was up. She had spotted him. The wariness crept back into her expression, the lab's fluorescents making her face look pale and pinched.

"Something you need from me?" she had queried after a moment in which neither one had anything to say.

"I'd like to know why you were so upset earlier, why you couldn't stay for the meeting," he replied. Oh, _why _couldn't he keep that note of disapprobation out of his voice? He knew she would be infuriated by it, but it had slipped out anyway—beyond his control, it seemed.

All she had done was glare at him and turn back to her work.

"Sara…" he had persisted.

She had snapped out something curt while again bent over the microscope, but though he could hear the occasional vowel sound, the sense was completely missing.

"Sara…"

This time his tone was pleading. It was only in her presence that he would have let that happen.

It only merited him a look that she might have given one of his cockroaches upon its escape from the confinement of his office and subsequent appearance on the lapel of her immaculate white lab coat. She was still speaking as she turned away to retrieve a bottle from a shelf behind her. Of course, whatever she had been saying was lost.

"Sara, please. If you're speaking to me, you're wasting your breath. I can't converse this way anymore."

This phrasing caught her attention; it made her stop and look at him, surprise in her cappuccino eyes. He now had her interest, at least.

And then he had blown the whole thing. Mentally replaying the whole scene, he really wished he could have kicked himself, as the old saying went—hard enough to have made him think before speaking. But having Sara in proximity seemed to have brain-scrambling effects on him.

"As I explained earlier to the others at the meeting…"

And that was when she had abruptly (and deservedly) consigned him to Hades. 

He felt like an old man as he made his way back to his office; or, at least, he felt like one of the walking wounded.

This would never do, he counseled himself. He could not cocoon himself in his office for the next eight-and-a-half hours remaining of his shift—not to mention the rest of his more than 20 years until retirement. As a matter of fact, he would not be trapped in the lab for another moment, no matter what he had promised Covallo—or anyone else. He needed some air. He had a right to work like anyone else. Taking up the information for the scene of the home invasion he had been going to give Sara, he headed toward the parking lot and his Tahoe.


	5. Showdown at High Noon

**4. Showdown at High Noon…er, ****Midnight**

He was so absorbed in his dusting of the surface of the deceptively bare ceramic-tiled entryway that he at first failed to register that someone had come up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder. Then, he had reflexively jumped to his feet. He sent his brush flying as he, in one fluid movement ,unholstered the gun that he so rarely discharged, but always carried while in the field.

Just as smoothly, the weapon was plucked from his fingers by a deft hand. Grissom quickly turned to face his attacker. Upon catching sight of the man's face, his fear quickly converted itself to cold rage. He cursed, vehemently and at some length—at Brass.

Usually the most genial of men—on the surface, anyway—Brass' aspect was completely unsmiling as he stood illuminated in the glare of Grissom's flashlight. He patiently waited for the CSI supervisor's ire to run its course.

"Damn it, Brass, you know better than that," Grissom complained crossly.

Brass raised his eyebrows.

"Know better than what?" he asked, slinging his hands into his pockets.

Grissom's own eyebrows rose—along with his renewed level of irritation. 

"You know better than to sneak up on me like that. And you know damn well why not. Don't be obtuse."

"Yeah," conceded Brass. "I sure do. Now, the suspect that may have just decided to pay a return visit to the crime scene because he forgot to take care of something…or someone…_he _might not know better."

Grissom's glower grew fiercer. 

"Don't even start with me. I had my gun."

"Yeah, you did." 

Brass unfolded his arms and held up the police special he had lifted from Grissom, admiring its dark-blue gleam in the dim light.

Grissom's thunderous expression might have worried a lesser man than Brass, whose look in return displayed only impassivity. Deadlocked, the two men stood in silence for nearly two minutes. 

Brass finally handed the gun back to Grissom, butt-end first, still without comment. Grissom averted his eyes as he shoved it back into his jacket pocket.

He looked up again sharply as he caught sight of two figures emerging from the shadows behind Brass. Both were tall, dark, and outfitted with silver satchels. His irritation had been gradually fading while only he and Brass had been standing there, but it quickly renewed itself, surpassing its former level as Nick and Sara joined them. Two pairs of brown eyes regarded him solemnly.

"You know, Brass, I have no problem with you delivering your object lesson. Your point is well made. I would, however, really have preferred that you not have made it in front of my team."

Brass' expression remained unreadable.

"No one's delivering any object lessons today, Grissom."

When he didn't go on right away, Grissom felt his already frayed nerves—and therefore, his patience—begin to further disintegrate. 

"Brass, _what_ are you doing here?" Grissom asked bluntly, his tone suggesting that he had restrained himself from adding several choice expressions to spice up his demand. He stepped back to put more distance between the two of them. He knew he was being petulant, if not childish, but it seemed as if some unknown persona had taken over his psyche for that moment.

"Just couldn't go without checking up on me? And stay back, will you? I just barely avoided contaminating this area because of you." He reached over to retrieve his fallen dusting brush.

Brass stared at him, his gaze unyielding.

"You're lucky it was only me. Otherwise, you just might be contaminating your scene with your own blood, Grissom."

Grissom again briefly averted his eyes, but could find no answer to the challenge. Like magic, Brass' demeanor reverted to its usual offhand amiability.

"And since when have I _ever_ checked up on you? As a matter of fact, you could say I'm here to save your precious tuckus, my friend."

When Grissom looked as if he would actually step forward and do violence to his colleague, Brass laughingly waved him back.

"Keep your shirt on, Grissom," he protested. "Like I said, they're looking for you back at the lab. Apparently, Covallo got a request to send 'that famous bug guy' down to Sparks to look at a murder at one of the casinos; has to do with some unusual species of insect being found on the scene that didn't belong there…"

Grissom's unaccustomed anger dissolved immediately and completely as his interest was piqued.

"Did he give you any more details? What kind of insect?" He was suddenly as enthusiastic as an eight-year-old left alone at a video arcade with a sack filled with quarters.

Brass laughed sardonically. 

"Do you think I'd know? I'm just the dumb-as-a-rock police captain. I just happened to overhear that they were looking for you."

Grissom's brow furrowed in confusion. 

"I don't understand why no one paged me," he mused. He had been so careful to make sure everyone knew his pager number, as well as the specifics on how to reach him. What had gone wrong?

Brass drew another familiar object from his pocket and held it out to Grissom. Astonished, the latter felt for his fancy new toy's leather holster. It was empty, of course. 

"Several of us did, as a matter of fact. Even tried you on your cell."

Grissom hadn't thought to make certain that he had put the BlackBerry back in its proper spot after its exposition at the meeting. And his cell was currently stashed in the cupholder of his Tahoe. But, 'several' of them? What was going on?

"When he got no answer to his page, Covallo, who was unexpectedly working later than usual, began searching the lab for you, but you were not in the immediate vicinity. Our Cath, bless her heart, just happened to remember that you were working on a _very_ important experiment in some remote back room; she didn't quite know which one, but she was sure that you were _so_ engrossed that you hadn't noticed his page."

Grissom was beginning to understand. His team had launched a massive cover-up to shield him. Shame rapidly displaced his previous fury—they hadn't been obliged to act on his behalf. They could have simply told the truth, and he would have been down the river—or up the creek.

Nick and Sara stepped fully from shadows, the light revealing that neither was at all pleased. Nick simply gave him a hard look before brushing past him to take his place at the scene. Sara was a different story. Her expression no longer held anger; if anything, she looked as if she were fighting tears. She quickly turned her head away to conceal them, bending down to help Nick finish dusting.

Grissom looked at Brass.

"You seem to be tonight's _deus ex machina_. So, tell me, what's up?"

Brass didn't even blink. His BA in history had been honestly earned. 

"They came along to finish up here so that you can go back. Hopefully, Dr. Covallo still has no idea that you're not in the office."

Chastened, Grissom's manner was circumspect and respectful as he asked,

"And just how did you know where to look?"

Brass snorted indignantly.

"I may not be a scientist, but my investigative skills remain excellent, thank you very much."

From her spot in the corner, Sara turned her head to give the policeman a stern look. Grissom could see that she had gotten hold of her emotions—outwardly, anyway.

Sighing resignedly, Brass retrieved a battered sticky note from his pocket. On it, in Grissom's distinctively square handwriting, was the address at which they were all assembled.

"You left this on your desk next to your pager, ok?" He returned Sara's severe look with a defiantly raised eyebrow; Sara gave him a faint smile of approval and amusement before turning back yet again to her task.


	6. Dinner and All That

**5. Dinner and All That**

He was free to leave—in reality, _needed_ to leave immediately, in order to make arrangements to get to Sparks, ten hours away by car. Brass had bid him farewell before heading back to his office and his healthy backlog of cases. 

His friend had also been kind enough not to put too much emphasis on the implications of what had had happened right after the return of the pager.

The ribbing had continued for a brief time until, suddenly, Brass stopped in mid-sentence, an intensely alert look replacing the usual aura of benevolent officiousness that he worked so hard to maintain. Nick and Sara, too, suddenly became intensely focused on something to which Grissom was, for whatever reason, not privy.

Nick quickly moved away from the hushed group, leaving the entryway and striding the short distance toward the utility closet in the hallway. He pulled the door open with a swift, powerful motion, and, unceremoniously, a human figure tumbled face down onto the carpet.

Upon scrambling reflexively to his feet, the small, scarlet-faced, middle-aged man was met with disbelieving stares from the four investigators. Apparently deciding to venture that they were too dazed to react to an escape attempt, he made as if to flee.

His flight quickly ended in a collision with Nick's broad chest and folded arms; thrown off balance, he nearly fell to the carpet again. 

Shaking his head in the quasi-paternal appearance of sympathy that had successfully beguiled worthier wrongdoers than this one, Brass retrieved a set of handcuffs from the capacious pockets that had been getting such heavy use that night. It was likely that he would not have detained the man if the latter hadn't so obviously demonstrated that he had motive to want to escape the inevitable questions and explanations his sudden appearance would elicit.

"You have the right to remain silent…"

While Brass handled the Mirandizing of what was eventually revealed to be the overextended—and amply insured—homeowner, Nick had picked up the small but effective (and doubtlessly unlicensed) handgun that had fallen on the rug along with the suspect. Sara called back to the station for backup.

The reinforcements arrived in record time; two uniformed officers led the embattled homeowner away in cuffs. This ending felt fairly anticlimactic to everyone who had been there, and Brass could sense his friend's impending emotional withdrawal. He acted immediately to foil it.

"Grissom, wait a minute," he asked quickly as Grissom began to turn away. "I know exactly what you're thinking."

Grissom gave his enigmatic smile, having completely recovered his customary self-possession. "Do you?" he asked wryly.

After a moment's reconsideration, Brass chuckled.

"Probably not. No one has a clue what's going on in there." He reached over to lightly tap his friend's forehead. "Well, okay. Let me ask you something…"

When he continued to pause for dramatic effect, Grissom looked at him impatiently. Brass realized that he was about to lose his audience and, with regret, "took it to the bridge."

"Are you a cop?" he queried abruptly.

Upon seeing the truly crusty look he got in response from Grissom, the other two CSIs couldn't restrain their laughter. Reassured that the "room" wasn't so tough after all, Brass quipped,

"Stupid question. God knows _you'd_ never sink so low." He gently caressed the badge of office that was displayed prominently on his suit jacket.

He basked in the amusement that flowed so copiously from the two CSIs at their boss' expense. Grissom himself tried to look forbidding, but in that atmosphere, couldn't help smiling instead. Never to be one-upped, he magnanimously offered, 

"I would never aspire to such heights; I know myself to be completely unworthy."

"Glad to hear it," Brass retorted, not prepared to give up the floor just yet. "Ok, then…you are not, nor do you have the least desire to be, anything resembling a cop."

By this time, it was clear not only to Grissom, but also to everyone else present, the exact direction in which the officer was headed with his commentary, but an exclusive Brass performance was not to be missed. Consequently, they let him proceed without heckling.

"Well, Grissom, that's good…because if you were, you would truly be riding a desk about now. No getting around that fact. But then…"

He stretched out an arm to indicate the other two standing next to his current victim.

"Funny, seems as if neither of you other two are cops, either. Cowboys, maybe; cops, no."

This surprised yet more laughter out of Sara, but Nick looked at him in indignation—before having to work to restrain his own laughter. 

Brass' manner turned unexpectedly serious again.

"You know, folks; especially in light of what recently happened to Sara…"

As if on cue, Nick turned to glare at his quasi-sibling; she returned the look with a frown of her own that was yet more ferocious.

"I've tried to hammer this point through for years, now; you guys really are strictly civilians with carry permits."

"Your point?" Sara prompted irritably, still irked about his giving Nick the chance to grill her—again—about her bravado at that crime scene. It had happened weeks ago, but Nick still wasn't letting up.

"My point being," Brass volleyed obligingly, "that I really wish that _none _of you would go out to scenes without police escort of some kind."

Nick snorted irreverently, still primed to retaliate for the "cowboy" remark.

"What, our enormous budget now allows for the whole force to come babysit us while we work? Get real."

Brass was still coolly serious.

"Did I say anything about babysitting? Hope you're not planning on dumping your pieces, because the _one _officer that we might be able to spare can't be everywhere."

All three CSIs were now displaying varying flavors of disgust.

"Hey, I know you're going to blow me off," Brass said, acknowledging their restlessness. "But do you remember the attack on Cath? Not to mention…"

Sara interrupted tersely.

"Do you mean the one where the officer on the scene had supposedly cleared it? He no doubt went off to do some _real _policework," she challenged.

"For which said officer is still smarting from the verbal reprimand he received; he narrowly avoided having a written one go into his permanent file," Brass responded, not missing a single beat. "But I've said my piece. I'm off the soapbox. _All _of you risk the return—or, like today, the discovery—of a suspect to a crime scene. You're not expected to restrain him or her…_that's _the job of the officially appointed law enforcement personnel on the scene." 

Nick looked slightly disappointed; but he escaped Brass' notice. The police captain's attention was now focused directly on Grissom as he turned to address him.

"So if you're looking for excuses to hide in your office until you decide to slink away altogether, you might as well declare that particular fishing expedition a wash. You won't find any here."

Imperceptibly shifting gears back into the affable façade that they were truly beginning to understand was absolutely and deceptively superficial, Brass yawned, conspicuously making as if to conceal it with one hand.

"Gotta go, because _I _have some real work to do," he informed them. "So, who's lead on this case?"

Acting completely on impulse, Grissom took the opportunity to make the day of the most insecure of his CSIs.

"Nick's primary on this one." He knew Sara was not chomping at the bit for this case, which he had been intending to give to her by default. Certainly, it wasn't high-profile, but it would surely suffice as an indication of his approval.

Nick raised a surprised eyebrow, but stepped forward as if he had expected it all along. His acting skills were definitely improving.

"All right, Nick. I'll get back to you after we've got the suspect processed; you can be there for the interview."

Even though there really were no such things as "open-and-shut" cases—lawyers working as hard as they did—no one believed that there would be any need for Nick to pose any questions to their pathetic arrestee. But it became immediately apparent that Nick himself appreciated his supervisor's goodwill gesture.

And then Brass had gone. Grissom was seated on the front porch of the ravaged home. How predictably clumsy these amateurs so often were, it was their sheer ineptitude that made them dangerous, he thought, reflecting on the clumsily wielded handgun that the suspect had dropped. It could have just as well have gone off in its owner's own face when it hit the ground, and its possession had only served to add to a quickly-mounting pile of criminal charges. Not to overlook the civil aspect of the case; Grissom was certain Nick's investigation of the specifics of the insurance policy—as well a look at the suspect's debt-to-income ratio—would be quite instructive.

Dismissing the case from the forefront of his mind, he moved on to the task for which he had selected this spot. Removing the BlackBerry from its holster, he began to scroll through all the pages he had missed. An especial favorite stood out from all the rest, a message from Cath whose tone had artfully combined the tart and the salty in one brief ASCII moment. In translation, it suggested that he turn up before he got himself irrevocably into trouble. He was confident that, somewhere in Nevada, a voice-to-text operator was either laughing hysterically or fighting the ravages of post-traumatic stress disorder. He also marveled that his beautiful new plaything hadn't melted down upon receipt of that communication.

He became gradually aware of another presence; the faint, pleasant, and completely unquantifiable scent that he associated only with one person made itself apparent.

He continued to glance through the messages from his team members. Each of them, in the unique manner of their various authors, urged that the boss get back to them immediately to get some important information. He had even received an e-mail from Greg: "Grissom, if you're out there—they're looking for you. Watch out." Grissom was sure that the tech was fully aware that such a message could be quite alarming if misinterpreted. He decided that Greg needed some specially-assigned busy work to harness all that excess zeal; he definitely intended to see to it the moment he got back from Sparks. 

Strangely enough, the discomfort that he had recently felt in the presence of his current companion was completely absent tonight. She had not attempted to get him to acknowledge her, nor had he thus far done so; and yet, the unnatural barriers that had so gradually built up between them seemed to be down in that moment. She sat next to him on the front porch steps; she was not actually touching him, but he was acutely aware of the warmth radiating from her skin. They sat in silence, but it was not a forced silence, or one that had anything to do with his diminished hearing. This was the companionable silence of the past; it arose from symbiosis, as opposed to the lack of anything of significance to communicate. 

A feather-light touch on his arm made him start a little as the spell was broken. When he quickly turned to look, he faced a very concerned pair of dark eyes.

"Sorry, Griss, didn't mean to scare you," Sara said cautiously, the earlier wariness back in her expression.

Wanting to banish that mood immediately, he was quick to reassure her.

"You didn't scare me." 

He smiled at her.

She still looked rather hesitant, so he confided further,

"Now, Brass, on the other hand; _he _scared the living daylights out of me. Not to mention about 30 years of life."

As he had intended, she laughed, relaxing a little as she did so. But her expression soon grew pensive again.

Just as he was starting to believe—and despair—that she would decide not to say after all whatever had motivated her to get his attention, she spoke.

"You know, Griss, I'm really sorry about earlier. I didn't mean to be so…so…"

He watched her as she contemplated and rejected various pejorative terms to describe her previous manner. She finally looked at him helplessly. 

"Whatever you might call it—I was out of line, and I'm sorry."

He wondered if it was pity that was motivating her, and desperately hoped not. Pity was such a poor basis for any sort of personal connection. They had once been so close that it seemed that, at times, the two of them had truly been of one mind. It had been a connection of equals that transcended imagined barriers of age and status. Pity could find no place in such a dynamic.

She was going on. He was grateful for the deep quiet of the now nearly-deserted house; it allowed him to rely less than usual on speechreading to understand her. Even better, she was sitting on his aided, "good" side. Her pleasantly musical voice had not yet been completely lost to him.

What she said was not what he had expected to hear from her.

"You know, after the whole explosion 'thing'…I'm wondering if any of us are really as 'all right' as we think we are. Sometimes, I've felt so on edge that I could scream—for no immediately rational reason. It was your rotten luck to get me at one of those times."

She briefly flashed "that" smile at him, the one that he believed in his wildest fancies to be reserved for him alone. Wide and winsome, it illuminated her entire face.

Who could help but smile back? Certainly not he. 

"And, I'm going to be honest with you, Griss. I was pretty mad at you—I still am, really, on a few levels."

He knew exactly why and on which levels, but he wanted to ask her anyway, and did.

"I just don't understand why you couldn't talk to anyone about this. Not _anyone,_" she responded.

Unspoken: Not me. This was a variant of the same sense of betrayal that Warrick had expressed, but in this case, he knew it ran deeper still. 

"And then, you were so—" her voice caught in a way that suggested she was fighting tears again. "So nice to me the night that the lab exploded."

A flash of pure, cold terror had struck him upon seeing her sitting, dazed and injured, on the curb after the explosion. Under its influence, the guards to his subconscious mind were ripped down without warning, allowing the depth of his feelings for her to be nakedly exposed in the form of one seemingly innocuous endearment. Under other circumstances, uttered by someone less reserved than himself, that 'honey' might have been a fairly offhand, even banal expression of concern. He felt his cheeks reddening at the memory of the mortification he had felt as soon as she had been treated and he had had time to understand the impact of what he had said.

"And, so, when I asked you if you'd like to go to dinner—which I now realize was sort of indiscreet—I didn't expect that you would react as if I'd asked you to eat mealy worms instead."

"Mealworms are an excellent source of protein, and when properly prepared…" he began automatically.

She laughed.

"I can't _believe_ I gave you an opening like that. I won't even ask about what you mean by 'proper' preparation. Okay, then…you reacted as if I were asking you to attend a cocktail party—as the sheriff's date."

One look at his horror-stricken expression confirmed that her point had been well made. 

"As I said—if I hadn't been so shell-shocked, I don't think I would have been so forward with you. But still…"

Frustration at her inability to put her thoughts into words that satisfied her kept her from continuing.

He sighed. She deserved the truth.

"Sara, do you remember what else I said?"

"It's burned into my gray matter, Griss. You said, 'I don't know what to do about this.'"

"When I said 'this,' I didn't only mean…"

He trailed off, but she nodded her comprehension—she knew what he meant. He continued.

"I was also talking about the…the situation with my hearing. It dominated my thoughts at work; and in light of it, I didn't have the resources to spare to contemplate…"

"Us," she filled in after he again failed to complete his thought. "Whatever that is."

He smiled slightly.

"Yes. And even now, with everything out of my hands…"

She looked at him with puzzled eyes.

"Since when has the future ever been ours to know, much less control?"

"Granted. But I don't believe that I have a lot to offer anyone right now, Sara."

She smiled gently, a hint of sorrow in her eyes.

"All I asked you was whether you'd like to have dinner. Not to go with me to some tacky chapel on the Strip and stand before Elvis."

There was silence between them again; still, its quality was unstrained.

Grissom was beginning to wonder if Nick had secretly disappeared through an unseen back entrance or been overcome by some other undiscovered suspect, until he felt a breeze behind him from the opening screen door. Appearing in the doorway, Nick said something to the two of them before going back inside, the screen door drifting closed behind him.

Sara repeated what Nick had said without being asked.

"Nick got a call from Warrick about another case; it was a pretty lengthy call. He had to stop working on the scene; he apologized and is going to need me in a minute to take photographs—I've got the camera."

"Thanks," Grissom said briefly, but with genuine appreciation.

"Look, Griss, you don't have to answer if you don't want to…" she began uncertainly, returning to the previous topic.

"Today only, I'm offering a special on questions," he teased gently.

She gave him a glance out of the corner of her eye; she never expected these occasional flashes of humor at her expense. For once, she felt equal to return to him in some measure what he dished out.

"There were these rumors a while ago…"

When she didn't continue, he offered,

"For quite some time, the rumor mill has been largely inaccessible to me. You'll have to elaborate."

"Were you really involved with that—" she suppressed what she had first intended to say. "That woman?"

He was honestly confused for a moment.

"Lady What's-her-face from that funhouse you and Cath were investigating with Brass," Sara prompted, her face severe. 

He felt righteously indignant for an instant. What about her involvement with Hank the Polyamorous Paramedic? What right did she have to ask about anything regarding his private life?

The moment passed, and he was then able to see the insecurity hiding beneath her truculent pretense. Her classical, strongly chiseled features were softened by the vulnerability she was feeling. Seeing this, he was unable to sustain his momentary resentment; his voice was gentle as he answered her query.

"If you are referring to Heather Macallan…she was a very good friend to me at a time when I was just beginning to realize how difficult it was to deal with a disadvantageous physical difference in the mainstream. She, on the other hand, had been there. We had quite a few long talks over tea." He sighed. "Unfortunately, the objectivity that comes with the job interfered with the friendship."

She looked disbelieving as she asked,

"That's it? Just friendship? I mean, you and Cath have been friends for, like, ever, but…"

"I'll be honest with you…the potential was there for the relationship to deepen. But, as I said, my job proved incompatible with it."

As well as the fact that as long as _you_ are somewhere out there, the idea of pursuing a relationship with anyone else seems preposterous, he silently added. But he didn't feel ready to take the considerable step of confessing those feelings to her.

Sara looked away, realizing that her rather public travails with Hank made her position rather shaky in this issue. Finally, she turned to face him again.

"I'm going to risk making a complete fool of myself, Griss. I'm going to ask you just one more time. Would you like to have dinner with me? See what happens?"

Grissom sighed, as he had before. But he smiled faintly, the expression reflected more in his eyes than on his face. She felt heartened

"All right," he acceded. "I'll call you when I get back from Sparks and we'll set something up. Sound good?"

She tried to keep the exultation from her voice.

"Yeah, I guess so," she replied, her tone studiedly non-committal. It fooled no one.

Nick stuck his head out of the front door again to address the two of them before going back inside. 

"Warrick again. New developments," she relayed. "He's giving me the chance to go back to the lab if I don't want to wait, but after that grilling we got from Brass, I wouldn't dream of leaving him here alone."

Grissom let out a small laugh. Nick would just _love_ knowing that he was so well protected.

"But don't worry, I'd never tell him that," she promised, correctly interpreting his expression.

She gazed at him intently for another moment, obviously dredging up the courage to ask something else.

"Out with it, Sara," he demanded, but that small smile was still lighting his face. It gave her the courage she needed to keep questioning him.

"I was talking to Nick earlier, and he said that you told the others that you won't be using an interpreter or anything on a regular basis…"

In fact, one of the first things he was going to find out before traveling to the murder scene in Sparks was whether someone on either end had arranged for an interpreter or if he needed to take care of it and bill his hosts later. Communicating with the colleagues he saw daily and had known for years was worlds away from taking chances with strangers and their unfamiliar speech patterns. But he didn't think that this was really what she wanted to know. Although he couldn't quite figure out where this seeming _non sequitur_ might be leading, he recognized that he _had _given her _carte blanche _to ask him questions.

"Not around the lab, no. It's not necessary at this point," he answered factually.

Did he see disappointment on her face? 

"Oh," she said. Just "oh." 

"Why the long face, then?" he asked quietly.

She sighed, pushing a stray lock of her shiny dark hair from her face. He felt his own hands itching to smooth back that rebellious tress when it slipped right back where it had been.

"Oh, it's just that…well, I guess I thought, until I talked to Nick, that we'd all need to learn to sign or something. But if you'd rather we didn't…"

He looked at her in bafflement.

"Why would I feel that way?" he asked her, truly taken aback.

"I don't know…maybe you wouldn't want to feel singled out…"

He laughed.

"I've felt that way all my life, for various reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with Sign. I definitely wouldn't oppose any of you choosing to learn it…it's a beautiful language, though more intricate than you may realize."

A memory flashed into his consciousness: During the case at the deaf college and her ensuing mini-battle with the prickly Dr. Gilbert, Sara had, as a conciliatory gesture, signed a cheery "hi" to the administrator when the single-minded woman had come to visit the lab to check on the progress of the hit-and-run investigation. Too intently focused on her own agenda, Dr. Gilbert hadn't noticed at all…but Grissom had. Sara's effort had moved him so much that he had had to look away quickly before she noticed.

Sitting with him now, Sara was still hesitant. Her next words revealed that her mind was in sync with his.

"I'm just remembering how mad Dr. Gilbert got when we, Warrick and I, brought over an interpreter when we went to talk to her. I just don't want to…" She found herself at a loss for words—tactful ones, anyway. He hoped, with some amusement, that she didn't believe he had turned into the "whack job" she had initially accused Dr. Gilbert of being.

"Actually," he said, "I don't think I ever got around to telling either of you, but you did the right thing. It's absolutely true that deaf people communicate in different ways, but, working under the constraints of time as you were, it was better to show up with an interpreter that you didn't need than not being able to question her at all because of the lack of one. They're not always available at such short notice." As he spoke, he was reminded that he really needed to get to work on his own request for one for his upcoming consultation…

Sara's face glowed from this show of approval.

"So would if be safe to say that you don't _need_ us to learn sign, but you wouldn't be offended if we worked on learning it and practiced on you?"

"To the contrary…I'd feel honored and embarrassed that you thought so much of me to make the effort."

She looked pleased, but still a bit confused. He thought he knew why.

"Don't make the mistake of thinking we're all of a piece, Sara. Dr. Gilbert is a human being with her own ideas; her own outlook and standards of behavior. The audiological condition of having impaired hearing doesn't make us alike any more than the two of _you_ are alike because you both have two "x" chromosomes."

She laughed heartily.

"You're treading on shaky ground, Griss. Any mention of estrogen and its purported effects, and the two of us _will _be alike; I'll start my own warpath."

He held up both hands in surrender.

"I'd never be so foolish as to make any such mistake." He shook his head with a smile.

He started when he felt the vibration of the pager he had replaced in its holster during their conversation. Quickly extracting it, his mouth twisted into an annoyed _moue _when he saw the displayed number—Covallo's extension. She leaned closer to watch as he retrieved the message the director had left.

GRISSOM: E-TICKET ARRANGED; YOUR DEPARTURE SCHEDULED FOR 0900 FROM MCCARRAN INTL; INTERPRETER TO MEET YOU IN RENO. DETAILS IN YOUR MAILBOX. GOOD LUCK, ROBERT. 

He was going to be leaving Vegas at nine that morning? He mouthed a strong profanity as he looked at his watch. It was two a.m. now. Didn't Covallo understand the concept of a biological clock and the consequences for the disruption thereof? But then, there was that unexpectedly friendly closing to the message—it didn't seem as if Covallo was trying to punish him in some indirect way. He detected the unholy hand of Catherine somewhere in these arrangements. Perhaps he had better stop leaving her unsupervised at the lab so often…

His suspicions were confirmed when the pager vibrated again, flashing its LED to indicate that a message had been received; this time, it was an e-mail from willowsc@lvpd.com. 

He couldn't help shaking his head and chuckling at the unrepeatable contents of Cath's missive; it was becoming evident that she was one of those people that felt highly empowered by the concept of consequence-free asynchronous communication; she would e-mail things that she would never say in person or commit to paper.

He felt another touch to his shoulder. 

"Wow, looks as if you'd better get back, if only to make sure Catherine's all right," Sara commented, her eyes showing mild surprise as she tapped her forehead to indicate which sort of "all right" she meant.

Sighing and getting carefully up from the porch steps, he nodded reluctant agreement.

"Yes, and I'll need to go throw some clothes into a suitcase. You can't tell me that Cath didn't have _something_ to do with that awful departure time," he grumbled. 

Sara tried to hold back her amusement, but it bubbled to the surface.

"Probably," she agreed, wanting to be sympathetic, but the situation was just too funny.

The screen door opened again, and Nick stuck his head out. This time, Grissom was close enough to understand the younger CSI.

"'Kay, Sara, anytime you're ready for those photos. Hey, Griss," he acknowledged his boss, who nodded at him in response. He then disappeared into the house again.

Sara put a hand on Grissom's arm to stop him as he turned away to head for his Tahoe, next to which Nick's own truck was now parked; Sara had ridden with him.

He smiled at her eager expression even without knowing why she wore it; her full grin was just so infectious, and he had dearly missed seeing it through all the previous months of fearful withdrawal.

"Wait, Griss. I wanted to ask you to teach me one sign before you go."

Curiosity seized him; what sign would she be likely to request? Some people wanted to learn all of the bad words first. Or maybe she wanted to know how to say, "I love you." He dismissed that one on two counts: One, because it was the essence of not only wishful, but magical thinking, and two; everybody already knew that phrase. 

He was momentarily gripped with serious worry; knowing her, she'd want to know how to say "quantum physics," or "Bose-Einstein Condensate," or some other such thing that was completely absent from his vocabulary—in both Sign and English. 

"Sara, I'm an entomologist, not a bricklayer." If only he got the chance to try that one out on her…

"How do you say 'evidence'?" she was asking, looking for all the world like a little kid on the first day of kindergarten.

Relieved, and, upon reflection, not entirely surprised by the request, he demonstrated the sign, a blessedly simple one. First, he made the sign for TRUE, an arc of the forefinger of his right hand in front of his mouth, immediately followed by the back of the same hand landing smoothly on the open palm of his left hand. He repeated it as she watched him intently.

Then, she attempted to reproduce it; only, her "working" hand flipped over at the end so that her hands met palm to palm.

He laughed, and she looked at him curiously.

"That looked more like you were saying 'true-school'—whatever that might be." He demonstrated the sign again. "Keep your right hand facing upwards—palm up," he advised.

Not having taken offense at the correction, she tried again, and got it right. Her smile, the special one that it seemed that only he ever saw, lit her whole face again. One would have thought he'd invented ASL, as opposed to merely imparting a single sign.

"Thank you, Griss," she said. 

Gratified, he quickly showed her the signs for "thank you," "you're welcome," and "see you later." More than that, he was certain, would constitute an overload for a first outing. She turned to go into the house to photograph the scene; the last sight he had of her was her now-serene profile briefly illuminated by the bright entryway before the door shut.


	7. Epilogue and Afterword

**Epilogue**

Melissa's office was brightly lit and cheery that morning. She herself was unusually resplendent in a royal-blue satin blouse and black skirt. The outfit represented a change from her normal, rebelliously casual look, which was generally comprised of blue jeans, t-shirt, and sneakers. Draped over a nearby chair was a translucent, brilliant blue scarf printed all over with golden suns, moons, and tiny stars.

Something about her mode of dress that day was unsettlingly familiar, but Grissom couldn't pinpoint just what it was. He set aside the thought for later rumination as she waved him into a chair and sat across from him in her usual spot. 

"YOU FINISH ENJOY TRIP?" she signed, grinning proudly as she showed off her drastic improvement from just the previous two weeks when he had first sought her out.

He gave her the universal "thumbs-up" sign of approval in response to her effort; in response to the substance of her remark, he laughed. She knew as well as he did that his time out of town had had nothing to do with recreation. 

"Let's say it was…interesting," he chose as the best way to explain his experience. "It's a long and boring story."

She had shrugged and smiled as if that were going to be good enough, but it was evident that she was more than willing to sit through the entire recounting, no matter how boring he deemed it.

He mischievously gave her one final chance to opt out, knowing well that she didn't want it. "You really have time for this?"

She looked left, then right; finally, a guilty expression settled on her face.

"I'm going to _make_ the time," she said, looking him candidly right in the eyes. Her expression had "report me, why don't you" written all over it.

He leaned back in the chair, feeling just as relaxed and in control as he used to before his life had changed so irrevocably. He was just about to start filling her in on the details when she looked over at her purse—strangely enough, a beaded, metallic gold purse—on the desk. 

_Excuse me for a moment, _she signed apologetically, leaning over to extract a small cell phone from the bag. She frowned with annoyance at what she saw on its display.

_I have a text message from Nevada State Hospital; one of the outside clients they forced us to take—the budget crisis, you know—has apparently made a suicide attempt,_ she explained to him, dropping her attempt to sign with proper ASL syntax. Her knowledge didn't stretch that far. 

It was Grissom's turn to frown at her. How could someone involved in one of the helping professions react so cavalierly to a suicide threat? 

_It's Robert again, _she was continuing, resignation in her eyes. _Every time his girlfriend leaves him, he calls her and threatens to kill himself. She freaks and calls the police, who cart him off to the hospital, where he ends up in the psych ward. They know him well there._

Grissom gave her a slight smile, but his eyes were serious.

"I hope it never gets any worse than that," he commented. "Because we, my team and I, deal with the ones that decide that they mean it, this time."

She narrowed her eyes at him for a moment. 

_Do you know what I do to clients that remind me of my moral responsibilities? _she mock-threatened him. 

_Are you about to give me information on some cold case files? _he asked with equally counterfeit seriousness.

_Don't I wish, _she replied. _Well, in the remote chance that my friend Robert should really be in need of my help, I will reluctantly have to end your session when I was supposed to. You're all cured, of course._

Grissom laughed at her sneaky jibe. _I didn't know I could be cured._

_As much as any of us. But I did want to ask how you feel about your position now. How are things going at work? _

Grissom smiled. 

"I probably shouldn't be so complacent. But things are looking fine right now."

Upon his return from Sparks, he had been nearly overwhelmed by his reception. Apparently, in his absence, he had achieved the dubious honor of becoming the new flavor of the month. 

He had greeted Nick in the locker room at the beginning of shift. While turning away to hang up his jacket, the Texan dislodged a garishly decorated book; a yellow-and-black copy of _Signing for Dummies _fell to the ground. His face flushed tomato red as Grissom obligingly bent over to pick it up and return it to him. Knowing the deeply ingrained complex that Nick had about others believing that he was less than bright, Grissom didn't dare to say a word about his choice of ASL primers. He was also surprised to see that Nick was specifically interested in learning Sign.

While stopping into the lab itself to check on some results that Greg had promised him, Grissom found the spiky-haired expert in his usual spot. Quite unusual among the folders and printouts was a battered copy of _The Joy of Signing._ Greg quickly swept it into an open desk drawer. Grissom raised an eyebrow, but said nothing about it. He took his results, thanked Greg, and headed out into the hall…

…where he nearly ran headlong into Bobby. This was becoming a bad habit, it seemed.

"Sorry, Bobby," he apologized. 

"Hey, I was the one wasn't looking where I was going," Bobby said, laughing. He seemed to be making a concerted effort to hold back his normal mile-a-minute rate of speech. "I never do." With a cheery smile, he was gone. Grissom guessed that he was forgiven. Not that he had spent sleepless nights over the prospect of _not _being forgiven…

And then he had walked into the assignment room, clipboard in hand. The others had preceded him there; he was just in time to witness a very strong signed insult being hurled at Sara—by Warrick, of all people. 

Grissom looked at him incredulously.

"Warrick, if you have any idea of the derogatory way in which you just referred to your colleague…"

Sara was standing beside her insulter, smiling broadly, her arms folded. 

"Yeah, Warr. How dare you," she taunted.

Nick stepped into the fray.

"Man, if you had just been here a minute ago…"

Sara's smile widened. She didn't look as if she felt at all guilty.

Grissom decided not to say another word about it. He was glad he had missed the earlier exchange, and just hoped that they were not indiscriminate upon whom they tried out their new vocabulary. 

Catherine had been standing in the corner, an annoyed look on her face.

"It's been like this all week, Griss. They're no better than a bunch of junior-highers," she declared with righteous indignation, her green eyes flashing.

But she stepped forward too abruptly. Out of the pocket of the stylish blazer she was wearing—she had an evidentiary hearing to attend at the end of her shift—slid a small book. She scrambled to retrieve it, but was too slow to prevent Grissom from doing so.

_Street ASL—the Definitive Guide _was emblazoned on the cover of the pocket-sized book. 

He was too fascinated with it to give it back to her right away. It contained many phrases with which he would have loved to shock his mother as a rebellious adolescent, had he had such a richly idiomatic command of the language.

Finally, he looked up and met her mortified eyes. 

"Might I borrow this, Cath?

***

_And when _you're _done with it, do you think I could see it? _wheedled Melissa. 

"Oh, of course. It's been very helpful, seeing as our workplace has now become decidedly bilingual," Grissom assented. "Too bad that it won't last, when the novelty wears off and work piles up."

Melissa smiled.

_Don't be so sure, _she dissented. _They do seem to hold you in great esteem. For now, anyway._

_Thanks a lot, Melissa, _he replied wryly. _For everything._

Still beaming, she got to her feet. It was then that he noticed that her high-heeled pumps were gold, as well. Interesting attire for broad daylight.

She noticed him noticing her outfit.

_I know I look completely ridiculous, _she acknowledged, waving off his attempts to disagree. _My little girl is having a theme party this afternoon. Leah is very 'into' Aladdin this month; I'm supposed to be a genie. I told her she'd need to compromise—this was the best I could do. And now, there's Robert…I'll never get out of there._

She stopped when she noticed that he was staring at her outright—completely uncharacteristic behavior for him. She smiled uncertainly.

_Something wrong?_

He shook his head after a moment. 

_Not a thing._

He got to his own feet. 

_Look, I really do want to hear how things went in Sparks, _she told him as the farewells were exchanged. _I think we ought to do whatever your version of lunch is…you night-shift folks always confuse me._

He nodded. 

_I'd like that. You've been a huge help to me, Melissa._

"Better than that bottle, let me tell you," she said aloud.

This was too much. 

"Bottle?" he demanded.

She looked at him in surprise, and then laughed.

_Sorry. I said I couldn't have had a better role model. Good luck, and give me a call about lunch?_

He shook his head to clear it. It had been weeks since he had needed any pain medication, but he now added more emphasis to his promise to never touch the stuff again.

_Will do. _

He held the door as she preceded him out into the hall, shutting off her light as she went. She draped the shiny scarf over her shoulders, and strode in the unaccustomed heels to her appointment with the despairing Robert.

Grissom headed in the opposite direction to the doors leading to the side of the parking lot which held his Tahoe. The morning was beginning to be well established, the bright sunlight bathing the entire complex with glittering light. As he was getting in to drive home, he took a quick look around him, expecting to see a wisp of blue-and-black, at the very least. But there was nothing. 

Until he saw it, tucked under a wiper blade—one of those annoying leaflets that underemployed people were paid to place on cars. Flyers that no one ever read, that ended up littering parking lots until blown away by the wind.

"Good Luck, Master of Your Own Destiny," was the title line, printed in unimaginative Courier New capitals. 

He didn't read the rest. It looked to be some flyer created to shill for some shady financial venture, but he really didn't need to know more about it. He tucked it into the side pocket of the Tahoe and drove home.

***

Afterword 

I just wanted to thank everyone for all of the reviews—feedback takes so much time to write! It is like an undeserved gift. :) 

You've made my first tentative venture onto Fanfiction.net so enjoyable that you've emboldened me to start on another pile of this stuff. (That should frighten you!) 

Seeya soon,

Jen


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